


i'll see you safely grown

by pdameron



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Fluff, John Silver's Emotionally Stunted Attempts To Show Love, M/M, Post Series, Thomas Hamilton's Completely Valid Hangups About Gardening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-08
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-05-04 03:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14584074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pdameron/pseuds/pdameron
Summary: Thomas, once they are free from the plantation, swears to James he will never pick up a hoe again so long as he lives.James, sweet, earnest James, takes his face in trembling hands and swears that he’ll kill any man who tries to make him.(in which John Silver declares his love via gardening)





	i'll see you safely grown

**Author's Note:**

> so this was a tumblr prompt that was going to remain on tumblr until i saw an anti-silver post that basically shat all over people who ship silverflintham and i was like. welp.

Thomas, once they are free from the plantation, swears to James he will never pick up a hoe again so long as he lives.

James, sweet, earnest James, takes his face in trembling hands  - it’s only been a week, and still neither of them can quite believe that the other won’t simply disappear at the smallest touch - and swears that he’ll kill any man who tries to make him. 

This is all well and good, but when they move to Philadelphia and start to rent their little house, it becomes abundantly clear that the wisest course of action as far as saving money goes would be to start a vegetable garden of some sort and, at least in the future, avoid needless spending. Every single one of their neighbors has some sort of garden, and a few even have trees that bear fruit in the spring and summer.

James, remembering Thomas’s solemn oath, manages the garden for the first two years. It means more than even Thomas can put into words, to know James would toil and sweat in the hot summer sun just so that he might avoid some unpleasant memories. 

God, but Thomas loves him.

It is in their third year in Philadelphia, six months after Silver comes to stay, that the garden poses any real problem. 

James’s carpentry has become more and more popular in these past few months, due in no small part to Silver using his position as a newly hired bartend to talk up his skill and adaptability as a craftsman. What this means, though, is that when spring begins to approach and a veritable horde of customers come to commission patio furniture and benches and whatnot, James is too busy to tend to the garden. 

He overhears one evening, whilst James and Silver are in the kitchen and he is tending to the fire in the sitting room, James asking - voice carefully neutral - if Silver has any interest in maintaining the garden in the warmer months.

Silver more or less laughs in his face.

“I can barely manage to stay on my knees long enough for the two of us to get off, sometimes. You want me to crawl around in the dirt?” he teases, and Thomas can easily picture the way James’s cheeks have probably gone pink, as they always do at any casual mention of the bedroom.

This thing between he and Silver, though Thomas can tell that it had been a long time coming, is still so new, so fragile; the way they behave at times reminds him of when he and James had first reunited, when they’d been sure the world around them might collapse at any moment.

Thomas, for his part, is just glad that he can finally eat a meal without feeling as though he might catch fire from all the sexual tension. 

Thomas knows that he might, were he a more jealous sort of man, resent Silver for taking up so much of James’s attention, but he knows, has always known, that James’s heart is far too large for his own good. He’d had his problems with Silver when he’d first arrived - namely over the manner in which James had been returned to him - but not once has he ever resented the man for the love James bears for him. They’ve resolved those issues, he thinks, and Thomas has found that he actually quite enjoys riling Silver up, enjoys bickering not-entirely good-naturedly with him.

It doesn’t hurt that Silver, when he bothers to wash up and trim his beard, is sometimes unfairly pretty. 

Over dinner one night, James broaches the subject of the garden.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about, Thomas,” he starts hesitantly, his eyes filled with guilt. It’s unnecessary, of course: he understands completely why James has to ask this of him, and the fact that he feels any sort of turmoil at all over it is enough to prompt Thomas to speak. 

“It’s fine, James darling. I’ll manage the garden this season.”

James sighs, reaching over and lacing their fingers together. James's hands have always been calloused and rough, but Thomas's own finally match them - they're no longer the hands of a lord.

“Thomas, you don’t have to say yes simply because it’ll make  _my_  life easier. If you’re not comfortable, if it truly bothers you, we can hire someone out - it’ll be tight, of course, but - ”

“I’m sorry, what’s the matter?” John asks, looking between the two of them in confusion.

“I joked once, after we left the plantation, that I would rather die than pick up a hoe or trowel again. Five years of indentured servitude leaves a rather bitter taste in ones mouth,” Thomas says as lightly as possible. Silver’s expression grows somber, just as it always does at any mention of the plantation, of what it represents both for Thomas and for his and James’s relationship. 

“I didn’t realize,” he says quietly, and Thomas waves his concerns away.

“Why would you? It’s not as if I speak often about my time there. You had no way of knowing my aversion to farming,” He turns to James. “This is different. It’s not as if anyone’s  _forcing_  me to work on the garden. I’ll start planting the cabbages and strawberries tomorrow afternoon, when I get back from the library.”

His employment at the local university’s library has been a source of near constant delight for Thomas; perhaps he’ll leave work in a good enough mood to make picking up a trowel slightly more bearable. He knows that it will be difficult, that memories of Savannah will haunt him long after he’s finished with the day’s planting, but he will at least have James to comfort him afterwards.

He spends the following day at work dreading the journey home, dreading this simple task James has asked of him. He feels ridiculous, getting so worked up over something as menial and unimportant as  _gardening_ , and yet he cannot stop the heaviness in his chest anymore than he could stop the sun from rising in the East.

When Thomas gets home, the seeds James had bought several weeks ago are not where he'd left them. The trowel, shovel, hoe, and watering can are also suspiciously absent. Perhaps James left them in the yard for him? Thomas heads to the back, only to find, in their little plot of land, ten evenly spaced rows with seeds already planted and watered. 

Thomas stands there, staring at their garden, completely baffled, for at least ten minutes. Then he hears a clatter in the kitchen behind him. He enters the house, only to find Silver sitting at the kitchen table, bent over a bucket of water and scrubbing at his hands irritatedly. 

“Bloody -  _fucking_  - dirt - ” Silver’s muttering, and this is when the penny drops.

Thomas takes in the stains on the knees of Silver’s trousers, the filth caked under his fingernails, the streak of dirt across his nose, and he can barely believe it. 

“You planted all those seeds for me?” Thomas asks, and Silver startles, whipping around to face him with an almost sheepish expression. It quickly smoothes, however, and Thomas finds himself faced with a well-practiced smirk.

“Well, for all of us. I hope you don’t think you’ll be the only one eating those strawberries.”

Thomas frowns, putting his hands on his hips. Normally, he’d be all for some playful banter, but he’s wise to Silver’s tactics. “John.”

Silver looks down at his hands, still shining from where he’d been trying to clean them. The apples of his cheeks have gone slightly pink; Thomas finds it absolutely adorable.

Thomas walks over, reaching out and lifting Silver’s chin with his finger. “You did all of this... for me?” He asks softly, gesturing to the backyard.

Silver shrugs, his gaze fixed pointedly on Thomas’s shoulder and avoiding his eyes. “I didn’t see any point in you needlessly upsetting yourself when I was perfectly capable of doing it myself.”

“But  - your leg. I thought…”

Another shrug, and Silver’s blush darkens. “It’ll be fine. Just sore for a few days.”

James had taught Thomas months ago that when John Silver says he’s ‘fine’, one should always assume that this means he is in agony. That Silver would willingly put himself through that, all so Thomas might be spared some emotional distress, it’s - well, it’s something James might do for him.

Which, in turn, gives him a thought, striking and lovely all at once.

“John, would you please look at me?” Silver follows his polite request, and Thomas - Thomas can see it all: the nervousness; the embarrassment; and above all, the adoration. Thomas is used to seeing the latter in Silver’s eyes only when he looks at James, his beloved captain.

He reaches out and cups Silver’s face in both his hands, before slowly leaning forward and giving him a chaste, sweet kiss. 

When he pulls back, Silver’s eyes are wide, his face a picture of shock with not a trace of the usual masks he wears. Thomas smiles, hoping he can convey with just a look the affection he feels for him. He thinks he could, with time, very easily see himself falling in love with Silver, if he’d let him. Thomas has a feeling though, that if he were to voice any of this aloud he might spook the other man. So he just keeps smiling, soft and patient.

Silver’s answering smile, when it finally comes, is shy and disbelieving and so very, very unlike the shark-like grins he normally gifts Thomas. It’s beautiful, and he just has to kiss him again for it.

This time, Silver meets him halfway.

**Author's Note:**

> thomas is a bit less of a shit than i would normally write him but this fic was just to soft for thomas and silver snarking
> 
> title taken from the secret garden (get it???? Because this fic is about a garden???? genius i know)
> 
> my bs tumblr is slverjohn :)


End file.
